In June, Hemet voters narrowly rejected a sales tax pitched by the city establishment as necessary for funding public safety services. Alas, Hemet taxpayers should prepare for yet another attempt at a money-grab by City Hall, as the council is expected to hear a proposal on July 26 to give it another try.

On July 12, talk surfaced of placing a tax on the November ballot, this time a general tax which only requires a simple majority vote for passage. Going down this road will only prove that the Hemet establishment isn’t ready to tackle the fundamental issues of the city.

Hemet is running out of money and spends beyond its means. This has been the case ever since the recession. Consecutive years of deficit spending and a complete reliance on a quickly dwindling reserve fund have put the city on the road to bankruptcy if significant reforms aren’t made. Lagging revenues, along with soaring pension costs and a rapidly growing police budget, have created a significant challenge for the city.

Since fiscal year 2011-12, general fund expenditures on its Police Department have grown from $13.9 million to $19.1 million and its Fire Department from $8.3 million to nearly $10 million, all in the context of a budget of $38.8 million, as projected for the 2016-17 fiscal year.

Facing a situation of increasingly constrained resources, the city did what many would do and spent much of last year brainstorming how best to get a tax increase passed to remedy the situation. They retained the services of consultants who specialize in helping government pass tax increases and gave them tens of thousands of taxpayer dollars to figure out how to fleece taxpayers of even more money.

The city settled on what would later become Measure E, a 1-percent sales tax with the potential to generate up to $10 million in revenues per year. Given most of the city’s budget is allocated toward public safety services and a perception that the current level of public safety services simply isn’t adequate, Measure E was designed as a special tax, with all proceeds specifically allotted to fund public safety services.

Special taxes have the benefit of giving taxpayers a clear idea of where their money is going. They also bypass any concerns that the new tax would simply paper over any poor decision-making by governments and would be used to bail out the city government as a whole. The catch, though, is that special taxes require a two-thirds vote for passage.

On June 7, Measure E received 63.1 percent of the vote, just short of the two-thirds needed for passage. Hence the city’s renewed interest in a general tax, which could be used however the city wants and only requires a majority vote.

“How we react to the sting and disappointment of the narrow rejection of Measure E will define what we will become,” wrote Dave Brown, Hemet’s police chief, in the aftermath of the vote. It looks like the city is reacting by pursuing a less accountable, easier-to-pass tax increase.

Taxation should always be a matter of last resort. Hemet needs to get its spending under control and evaluate all of its options toward that end before going to taxpayers and asking them for more money. Practically speaking, the city should have waited for the ongoing audit of its finances by the state auditor, ordered by a state legislative committee in January, before putting a tax measure on the ballot.

At the very least, Hemet needs to do more than fixate on a tax hike. City officials should have been holding serious discussions about other options for years, even if that means contemplating outsourcing fire and police departments or forming a joint powers authority for those services.

Will enough people realize what’s happening to steer the city in the right direction? That remains to be seen.

Sal Rodriguez joined the Editorial Board in 2014. He got his start in journalism investigating the abuse of solitary confinement in American prisons and jails with Solitary Watch, and has been published by a variety of publications including The Guardian and Mother Jones. He is a graduate of Reed College in Portland, Oregon.

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